Finally, the night I considered being the maximum of both the Southern Delta Aquarids and the Capricornids had arrived! I had decided to do one more hour of observing, to follow the SDA activity into the morning sky. It was a calm and warm night with a transparent sky with a Lm of 6.77. After 2 nights of decreasing activity, I was wondering if the SDA could come up with some decent maximum rates!
I started out 15 minutes earlier than the previous night, with the SDA radiant still low in the sky. Only 2 SDA meteors were seen the first hour, but with rising radiant elevation, the meteors seemed to flow more frequently. The second hour gave the best rates so far during my SDA campaign, with 14 meteors seen. The third hour rates improved further to 19 meteors, with a beautiful, yellow, -1 magnitude SDA in Pegasus as a highlite! The fourth hour saw a noticeable drop in activity to 10 meteors an hour, before increasing again to 15 meteors the last hour of observation. All in all a decent SDA maximum, comparable to the observed activity seen under my SDA campaigns in 2017 and 2019.
In many ways the Capricornids stole the show this night! A very strong maximum was seen, with stable rates at a much higher level than the previous nights. The first hour of observation gave the best rate so far during the campaign, with 7 Capricornids seen. Rates continued to increase into the second hour, that ended with a record-breaking count of 10 meteors an hour! The third hour rates slid back to 6, but the shower was still keeping me busy with its characteristic, slow moving meteors. Well into the fourth hour, a stunning blue Capricornid with one giant flare, lit up the sky low in the star-rich area of the Milky Way. I find it hard to estimate such bright magnitudes, but I reported the meteor as a -6 mag. I was taking photographs with my DSLR camera, but the meteor was unfortunately slightly out of my 16mm camera field. Looking at the picture taken the moment the meteor appeared, the background color changes from black to light blue, lighted up by the final flare of the meteor outside of the camera field. The -6 estimate is probably too low, and may have been closer to the about -8? Another nice -1 mag CAP was seen this hour in Pegasus, and the hourly rate came in at 7 meteors. Only the final hour of the night, CAP rates fell to 3, with the radiant quite low in the sky.
Perseid rates were around 3 for most of the night, with the exception of the fourth hour, where 9 meteors were seen! The brightest Perseid this night was a +0-magnitude meteor in Pegasus. 2 nice sporadic meteors were also seen this night. The first one was a yellow slow-moving meteor with fragments low in the western sky. The second one was a yellow, fast moving -3 magnitude meteor in Aquila.
A total of 167 meteors were seen in 5.03 hours of observation. Of these were: 48 SPO, 33 CAP, 60 SDA, 20 PER, 1 GDR and 5 ANT.
Observed showers:
Alpha Capricornids (001 CAP)
Southern Delta Aquarids (005 SDA)
Perseids (007 PER)
July Gamma Draconids (184 GDR)
Anthelion Source
20:45 – 21:45. Teff: 1.00, F: 1.00, Lm: 6.77, RA: 255, DEC: +20
SPO: 6 meteors. +1(2), +2(3), +3
CAP: 7 meteors. +1, +2(2), +3(2), +4, +5
SDA: 2 meteors. +1, +5
PER: 2 meteors. +1, +3
GDR: 0 meteors.
ANT: 1 meteor. +3
21:45 – 22:45. Teff: 1.00, F: 1.00, Lm: 6.77, RA: 270, DEC: +20
SPO: 7 meteors. +2, +3(2), +4(2), +5, +6
CAP: 10 meteors. +0(2), +1, +2(3), +4(2), +5(2)
SDA: 14 meteors. +1(3), +2(2), +3(5), +4, +5(3)
PER: 3 meteors. +2(2), +3
GDR: 0 meteors.
ANT: 2 meteors. +3, +5
22:45 – 23:50. Teff: 1.033 (3 minutes break), F: 1.00, Lm: 6.77, RA: 285, DEC: +20
SPO: 11 meteors. -1, +1(2), +2(2), +3(2), +4, +5, +6(2)
CAP: 6 meteors. +1, +2, +3(2), +5, +6
SDA: 19 meteors. -1, +1, +2(4), +3(8), +4(3), +5(2)
PER: 3 meteors. +0, +3, +5
GDR: 0 meteors.
ANT: 0 meteors.
23:50 – 01:00. Teff: 1.00 (10 minutes break), F: 1.00, Lm: 6.77, RA: 300, DEC: +20
SPO: 9 meteors. -3, +0, +2, +3(2), +4(3), +5
CAP: 7 meteors. -6, -1, +1, +2(2), +3(2)
SDA: 10 meteors. +0, +2(2), +3(3), +5(2), +6(2)
PER: 9 meteors. +1, +2(4), +3(3), +5
GDR: 0 meteors.
ANT: 2 meteors. +1, +3
01:00 – 02:00. Teff: 1.00, F: 1.00, Lm: 6.65, RA: 315, DEC: +20
SPO: 15 meteors. -1, +0, +2(4), +3(2), +4(4), +5, +6(2)
CAP: 3 meteors. +1, +3, +4
SDA: 15 meteors. +1(2), +2(3), +3(2), +4(5), +5(2), +6
PER: 3 meteors. +3, +4(2)
GDR: 1 meteor. +3
ANT: 0 meteors.
